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Press Complaints Commission & Espionage cases

Given the current "New Cold War" between the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation, it is important that the mainstream media are as accurate as possible when covering such topics as court cases involving alleged or actual spies or breaches of the Official Secrets Act, or treason or terrorism etc.

Incredibly, it has taken a complaint from Mike Smith, a blogger who was himself convicted "spying for the Russians", to complain to the Press Complaints Commission over the lack of fact checking (even of Google, let alone their own internal newpsaper archives) by several Fleet Street newspapers, i.e. The Scotsman, The Daily mirror and the Daily Telegraph, after an inaccurate report was published by Reuters, which made the claim that the current trial of Daniel James, a British soldier who served as an interpreter in Iraq, in a civilian court rather than a military court martial, was somehow "the first spy case since the Cold War and even the first such case since that of Michael Bettany in 1984."

Mike Smith has had his complaint upheld by the PCC, and correcttions have been published by most of the newspapers involved. See Press Complaints Commission & Espionage

If simple historical facts are not being checked or reported properly, then why should we believe all the "off the record" briefings from "anonymous" Whitehall or Police sources, which also usually worms its way into any press and broadcast media reports involving terrorism or espionage etc. ?

For those who like to comment on such things, this is another clear example of bloggers bringing specialist knowledge and experience, or just common sense and a memory and attention span slightly longer than that of a goldfish, to bear on parasitic mainstream media reporting.

Comments

Ah, that kind of thing is exactly why people should read Spy Blog :)


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